


Find the Map and Draw a Straight Line

by thinkatory



Series: To Lead Yourself Here [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 06, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Plotty, Team TARDIS, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2014-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/219126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkatory/pseuds/thinkatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While the Ponds are honeymooning in the TARDIS, the Doctor tries to work out who destroyed his TARDIS, how, and why. As usual, the holiday is short-lived, after a very improbable phone call leads to a few unexpected reunions and a whole other side to the story of the mysterious Silence. <i>"There's only one force in the universe left capable of changing things at that level, at a personal level, to help me, that's the Bad Wolf," the Doctor snapped off. "So where is she, Donna?" / "I don't know," Donna said simply. "But we can find her together, and we can put it right."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Eleven/Rose with Donna fix-it." Title from "Set Fire to the Third Bar" by Snow Patrol/Martha Wainwright. This is one part of a series that are Alt-Season 6 and 7 (To Lead Yourself Here), focused on at least two rare pairings and inspired by both early New Who's arcs and later New Who's nuances.

It all began with an explosion, as it so often did.

The Doctor found himself lucky in that the Pandorica thing didn't come up in conversation once he'd dragged the Ponds along for their honeymoon trip and beyond, for lots of reasons. Least of all was that no matter how much the companions he picked up along the way cared for him, they were never good enough to pick up on when he was completely and fully rattled  _and_ make him admit it.

Usually.

Rory Roranicus Williams-Pond had also been fairly busy fighting off Auton instincts and the grand desire to join the hordes closing in on the Doctor, and Amy was busy being shot with Rory's gun in an entirely literal sense for once, so the Doctor was left with no one to ask questions or answer to on how traumatic it actually had been.

Rattled was definitely the word. He was most certainly not okay with --

Actually, the smarter thing would be to list the things he was perfectly all right with. There was Amy and Rory and their wedding and the universe being put right thanks to his stroke of brilliance (take that, Pandorica Alliance), and River Song made her way up that list each consecutive time he had the pleasure of adventuring with her. It was everything else that he found very much not good and puzzling in the bad and quite honestly disturbing way.

"Boom," the Doctor said faintly under his breath as he picked through wires with his fingers, examining connections and circuits and all the things he could name like a pedant if he felt like being particularly annoying that day. That wasn't today's aim.

Today, he needed to know how it was done. Then he could find out the who, and the why, and show them what happened to people who thought it was clever to destroy the fabric of the universe and pin it on someone who was perfectly innocent of most things that reasonable beings would consider major crimes against the universe.

"Destroying my own TARDIS," he said into the breaker, scorn sharp in his tone. "I never.  _Daleks_  giving me lectures. Honestly."

If he dwelled, he could still feel their grip on his shoulders, and the hoarse jab in the back of his throat as he screamed for them to let him go, to fix it, to stop it before it happened and  _only he could_  --

 _I'm sorry, my love,_  River had whispered, every time.

The Doctor shut the last engine interface up and picked up his toolbox, tensed and deaf to any distractions. Next, the console.

"Doctor?" Amy asked from the door, and he sent her a cursory glance, keeping his face carefully blank when he noticed that she'd been digging in the wardrobe again. This time it was a flapper dress that Victoria had taken to, albeit with much less ... leg involved.

He waved it off and went to pass by her, talking as she followed. "I'm fine, nothing's going on, we're still in flight and I'm doing repairs. Also in case you were wondering I didn't hear you two doing whatever it was you were doing in your marital bed et cetera," he assured her. "Unless you weren't. Doing things in your marital bed. I don't need to know."

"Ooh, you really think I spend half my time with my legs in the air, don't you?" Amy clearly fought a smile or smirk or anything that could give away that she wasn't in fact offended. "I should smack the taste out of your mouth."

"That would show me," he agreed breezily.

"Oh shut up. Look, it's important, you've got to come to the console room, right away," she pressed, following him closely.

"Pond," he interrupted, adjusting the digital goggle settings to suit twiddling with the column and the Heart of the TARDIS interface instead of something as simple as the engines. "Oh, Pond. You know what's important? Finding out why a TARDIS,  _my_  TARDIS, would explode and detonate every star at every point and time and wipe out almost every moment of time across every universe – "

"I remember that," Amy said, cross. "I'm ginger, not blonde."

"Doctor, you really should come back to the console room," Rory's voice came over the intercom.

"When did you figure out the comm console?" the Doctor asked, maybe a little aggravated. It was one thing to teach a companion something, but entirely another for them to learn something and use it to boss him.

The intercom picked up Rory's sigh. Luckily, it probably didn't pick up the Doctor's slight huff. "Amy, did you tell him?"

"I was getting to that! He's not listening to me.  _Doctor_ ," she said patiently, "someone's on the phone for you."

That caught his interest. "Really? Who?"

Amy shrugged. "She says her name's Donna."

* * *

The Doctor ran to the console room without taking off the goggles, even though he could barely see the incoming twists and turns, and had a few less than dignified close calls with colliding into walls, because this was IMPORTANT, because it DIDN'T MAKE SENSE, and if he didn't go faster he would have to make himself accountable to Amy and her questions.

Once at the phone there was a very pregnant pause where the Doctor would have picked up the phone if only he weren't fighting the urge to run in the opposite direction. Thankfully, Amy and Rory were there to block his way back into the maze of the TARDIS. "It can't be Donna. You misheard," he said to Amy.

"I didn't  _mishear_ , she said it just like that,  _Donna_ ," Amy said, deliberately slow, and picked up the phone. "Hi! Amy Pond again. The Doctor's being an idiot, could you repeat your name please?"

The Doctor handed the toolbox off to Rory, pulled the goggles up over his forehead and raised a finger to give Rory instructions before he'd heard Amy prattling on again. "Pond! Stop messing around and give me the phone."

"Anything you want me to do with this or, I'll just put this over here," Rory decided upon seeing the look on the Doctor's face.

"She says her name's Donna Temple-Noble and you need to stop being a prat," Amy reported, her hand over the receiver. "Think you've got to take this call, Doctor, she means business."

The Doctor yanked the goggles from his head, handed them off to Rory again, and gestured for the phone. He warily waited for something to explode as he put it to his ear, and when it didn't, he said, "Hello?"

"Is that you? Of course it is, no one prattles on like you," Donna's voice went on. " _It's me_ , you big dumbo, get your blue box back here to London, I need you. I need the TARDIS and her vortex circuitry  _more_ , but you're sort of the nutter in the center, aren't you?"

"Donna, you can't be talking like this, you  _can't_ ," the Doctor said, just barely toeing the line between alarm and full-out panic. "You can't  _remember_  me, you've only got a handful of minutes, I'll be right there, now stop yourself THINKING or you might just -- "

"Hi, hello,  _are_  you listening, I think not, I've been ringing your TARDIS for ages now and whatever you and Little Miss Pond are up to must be fun for the whole family since I only  _just_  got hold of you," Donna retorted, "so I think I know better than you how long I've got. Looks like  _I'm_  fixed."

The Doctor twisted a knob and punched in the code for call-tracing, and only relaxed once he got a location. "Right! Coming for you," he said to Donna, "and don't do anything stupid, will you, I like your head too much to watch it go all explode-y." He hung up on her. "Okay, we're off to London! Fast! Fast as we can!"

The TARDIS groaned as he pulled the engine release lever, and it pitched sideways, throwing Rory into Amy. The Doctor clung to the console, content to ride out the wave, then he heard it.

The Cloister Bell was ringing.

"What's wrong?" Amy asked him, alarmed, and grabbed his arm once the TARDIS was on an even keel. "What's  _happened_?"

"That sound is a very bad sound and you two need to be ready to do anything I say because I've only got a few minutes to sort this out before reality snaps shut on us like a bear trap," the Doctor explained as best he could through the mild, exhilarating terror. "Are you ready, Ponds?"

"No," Rory said honestly. "Sorry,  _what_  was that sound?"

Amy elbowed him. " _Yes_ , what do you need, Doctor? Tell me what you need."

"Tell me it's all right and we can sort it," the Doctor said, eyes glued to the console as he checked into the state of the universe and that sort of thing.

Amy's hand was on his shoulder as he took in as much of the Gallifreyan on the screen as he could manage. "You can do this," she reassured him.

He couldn't stop himself saying it once he realized. "Oh no."

"Did he just say 'oh no'?" Rory said faintly, behind him.

"No," Amy said uneasily.

"I think he did. Doctor, should we be running?" Rory pressed.

"We are, we're running towards it," the Doctor said firmly. The TARDIS's landing wasn't perfect but it was quick, and he ran for the door, shoving it open, only slightly hearing the Ponds chase him down the street. "DONNA!"

" _What_  are you shouting for, I'm right here," Donna shouted back at him, not a meter from where the TARDIS had materialized.

The Doctor stared at her for a long and stupid moment, astounded enough at the brilliance that was Donna -- Time Lord consciousness or no -- to forget that her mind was going to implode within a few minutes. "You really haven't changed a bit, have you," she said, affectionately, and her half-smile sent him running to her, first seizing her in a hug before he pressed his forehead to hers.

_Here I'm here don't try and put me back the way I am Doctor 'cos I'm **here**_

She was in every nook and cranny. She was safe. "That's not possible," he said, opening his eyes to look her in the face. "You  _can't_  be."

"You're wasting time, Doctor," Donna said, gently pointed. "Something's very wrong, and I'm here to help."

"The Cloister Bell," the Doctor said faintly, releasing her after an awkward pause. "It's started."

Donna calmly removed herself from the Doctor's grip. "Let's  _go_  already! We've got universes to save!" She looked to the TARDIS door, and Amy and Rory. "Hi, I'm Donna Temple-Noble, you'll be Amy and this must be Rory!"

"Right," Rory said, shaking her hand once she'd seized his, looking blank. "Um, you called?"

"She's going to help," Amy said, and smiled at Donna. "Hi! Friend of the Doctor's?"

"Yeah, and one day he might even deserve me," Donna said brightly. "Well  _come on_ , let's get moving!"

"What about Shaun?" the Doctor pointed out, feeling a bit stupid.

"I think Shaun'll understand once I mention I'm  _saving the universe_ ," Donna said, rolling her eyes. "Now are you coming or not?"

"Of course I'm  _coming_ , it's my  _TARDIS_ ," he said haughtily.

"Oh you've got a mouth on you this time," she returned, hands on her hips.

"Sorry, 'this time'?" Amy chimed in.

"Not the time to gossip!" The Doctor opened the TARDIS door and ran inside. "Come along, there's a universe to save!"

* * *

 

"Oh, you  _redecorated_!" Donna's voice rang out in the console room. "I don't like it."

The Doctor glowered at Amy, whose grin was enough to dull the panic from the Cloister Bell sounding once more.

"Let's get to work!" he declared. "What have we got?"

"Long story short," Donna said to Amy and Rory, "I got the whole of his Time Lord-y brain in my head a few years back and since I'm just human it overloaded the measly human circuits, I'd have died eventually. But something changed me and fixed me -- "

"It didn't fix you," the Doctor interrupted. "You didn't need fixing, Donna, you were just fine as you were."

"Oh excuse me, I was just a secretary in Chiswick!" Donna retorted. "I wasn't just fine, I didn't have you or the TARDIS or anything!"

"What changed you?" Amy interrupted them, resting a hand on the Doctor's arm to restrain him a moment.

Donna fixed the Doctor with a careful look as he tried to keep his mouth shut and listen. "There's only one force in the universe capable of doing that and you know it," she said. "But I can't help unless I know what you've been up against -- or up  _to_ , from what I gathered." She gestured between their foreheads -- the telepathic connection from earlier.

"What  _force_? There aren't any forces, not anymore, not really, not that I've heard from recently, everything's gone belly-up since the Time War and that's not really the point now is it," the Doctor realized as he talked, and went on. "Look, there's no changing your biology and I'm not convinced you aren't going to go ka-boom as we're talking to you right now no matter how convincing a patch-job this 'force' managed and -- " He paused as he did the mental math, and forced a breath out between his teeth. "Oh," he finished.

"Aaaaand he's got it!" Donna declared, gesturing openly with her hands and clapping them together in vague satisfaction.

The Doctor did his best not to panic and began the dematerialization to head into the Vortex, to do whatever he had to do to confirm this and fix it and maybe figure out why his TARDIS had been hijacked and exploded and nearly ended the universe as he knew it. "Where is she? Did you see her, hear her, anything?" he demanded of Donna.

Amy touched his shoulder, but he brushed her off. "Doctor -- " she tried.

"There's only one force in the universe left capable of changing things at that level, at a personal level, to help  _me_ , that's the Bad Wolf," the Doctor snapped off. "So where is she, Donna?"

"I don't know," Donna said simply. "But we can find her together, and we can put it right."

"It doesn't make sense, she was in a parallel universe, it shouldn't have affected her, her universe should be just fine," the Doctor insisted. "It can't be her -- "

"Parallel universes. Sometimes it's like living in a comic book," Rory said, apparently to himself.

"There's no such thing as parallel," Donna said reasonably, and pulled the Doctor away from the console. " _Stop_. Breathe."

The Doctor sent her a pained look. "There's no need to be patronizing."

Donna poked him in the chest. "You're being a pain, I'll act how I want, now  _you_ get to shut your face for a minute while I remind you about  _basic_  non-Euclidean chronological concepts such as the basic intersection of an infinite number of possible universes intersecting at various points in space-time which means that if one whole universe gets unwritten by Vortex energy -- "

"All the universes that intersect with the unwritten point are unwritten as well, yes, I remember," the Doctor said hastily. "I bet Shaun's loving this side of you."

"Oi  _watch it_ , I won't stand for you making fun of my husband or my being a wife because I'm  _proud_  thanks, and you didn't show up now did you,  _I think not_ ," Donna pressed on, "so let's get back to the point -- "

The Doctor raised a hand to stop her talking. "Hi, yes, I was at your wedding," he interjected. "So no more guilt trips."

Donna softened. "You were?"

"You think I would miss your wedding?" the Doctor retorted, indignant. "I have a  _time machine_."

She shoved his arm, not without affection. "I know that! But you're  _soooo_  important, why would you show up to some wedding on 21st century Earth when you could be freeing space miners from the yoke of their evil corporate masters or battling green monsters of doom with only your mad giant brain and a screwdriver?"

The Doctor brushed it off and went on his correcting voice, "Donna, it's never just miners or a monster, it's always miners  _and_  a monster, and I would push over Madame du Pompadour to get to your wedding on time, now can we get back to the threat to the universe and Rose?"

Rory raised his hand. "Sorry, we're lost, any chance you could let us in on the threat to the universe thing?"

"You're like twins, speaking in your own secret Doctor-y language," Amy said, fingers waggling.

Donna turned to the couple, amiably enough. "Didn't I say? Once the point of intersection between one universe and another is unwritten by Vortex energy, the intersecting universe is unwritten completely -- "

"Actually it's  _most likely_  unwritten completely, with a survival rate of plus or minus two percent," the Doctor interjected. "It cracks the universe at the center and it's bound to shatter eventually,  _unless_  it's got a trump card up its sleeve, like a clone of me, or Rose Tyler, for example."

"You think it's still there," Donna said, unabashedly skeptical.

"I think Rose is still there," the Doctor corrected. "I think parallel Gallifrey's still there. One of the two put you right, and only  _one_  of them can or even would do that, because parallel Gallifrey would know you can't possibly be what you are and... once humans get an idea in their heads, it's all 'of course it's possible, I can do it'!" he finished, and looked at Amy and Rory as they exchanged a look. "What?"

"Let's go find her, Doctor," Amy said, and gently guided him by the shoulders to face the console. "So what do we need to do?"

"Oh my god,  _no way_ ," Donna realized, and sank back against the rails. "Oh, we're in a heap of trouble."

The Doctor barely spared a glance in Donna's direction as he set the TARDIS to materialize somewhere plausibly safe. "What?" he demanded.

"If she's not in her universe she's in the Void, there's nowhere else for her to  _be_ , Doctor!"

He threw a switch and brought the TARDIS to a tidy landing. "It doesn't matter where she is, I can get her." He took out the sonic screwdriver and crouched by the console, undoing screws left and right to reveal the glittering innards of this gorgeous machine.

"WHAT are you doing," Donna snapped off, and seized his arm, but he barely heard Amy stop her with a few quick words.

"Don't worry," the Doctor murmured to the TARDIS fondly. "I'll find her. Donna! I need a direct interface with the Heart of the TARDIS, same old code -- "

Donna leaned on the console beside the half-opened Heart of the TARDIS and said, understanding and blunt all at once, "I am not letting you upload the Vortex into your head."

"Good thing I'm not asking your permission then."

" _Doctor_ ," Amy cut in. "This sounds dangerous."

"I'm not uploading, I'm ... consulting, and even if it is," the Doctor added, pointed in the moment, and looked Donna in the face. "Trust me."

Donna balked only for a second, and went to the nav console to enter the code. "He's always been like this," she confided in Amy and Rory, and brought the direct interface goggles over to him once she'd patched them in. "All 'oh, is this a dangerously stupid thing to do? I'll be there in a flash!'" she went on mocking him.

"Well. Someone's got to," Amy said, and drifted closer to Rory as the Doctor looked back at them. "What?"

He pulled the goggles on and tapped them with a finger. "Don't take them off. No matter what. And if something happens to me, you listen to Donna, she's almost as brilliant as me."

"Almost,  _ha_ ," Donna dismissed, with a broad grin. "Well  _go on_  Doctor, prove it!"

"Be careful," Amy said, chiding, and he hesitated at her look of careful concern. "Do it! Get the girl!" she pressed.

The Doctor didn't give himself the chance to deny, hesitate, or make excuses. He threw the switch.

* * *

 

 _Still broken,_  the Heart of the TARDIS said to him.  _Always broken._

The universe, the multiverse, everything he'd done to save it was a patch job, at best, but it always would be.  _Not always. Help me fix it._

 _Gone_  -- a flash of Rose's hair and cheek bathed in golden light –  _she is ours, she is gone._

 _I know._  The Vortex energy both seared him and comforted him in its warmth.  _You brought Donna back. Bring Rose to this world._

For a moment he felt something intensely wrong, the glass of the TARDIS floor against his shoulderblades, and the Heart pulsed, weak and hesitant and denying, until the words came to his mind, unbidden.

 _Bad Wolf,_  he said.  _Who's afraid of --_

He felt her there before the Heart of the TARDIS snapped shut around his mind, streaming through him, and then he heard -- felt -- the voice, soft, layered and echoing through his consciousness.

_My Doctor._

The Doctor tore the goggles from his face and scrambled back, dazed and unable to express any of his gratitude for Amy's arms around him and Donna's quick fix of the console. "I did it, I," he started.

"Oh my god you're  _okay_ ," Amy seemed to be murmuring more to herself than to him or anyone else there.

"Doctor," a voice said, and the voice cut straight to his hearts. He looked up instantly, in time to see Rose wavering on her feet, eyes wide and the Bad Wolf coursing through her.

"Thank you," the Doctor said, and it felt so inadequate.

The Bad Wolf took an uneasy step forward on Rose's feet, looking down at her trainers, and spoke urgently, "I can't... this body."

"I know. Is your universe safe? Are you safe?" the Doctor pressed.

"No," the Bad Wolf said crisply. "It's all gone." Then an expression of pain cut through the Bad Wolf's facade and Rose whimpered and choked, and the Doctor rushed to her, holding her when her knees threatened to give way.

"It's all right, Rose, we'll sort it," he said, insistent and firm.

Rose's hand went to his face and he glanced down in concern to see the Bad Wolf looking back at him. "The universes are sick, Doctor," it said. "You saw the death after a long sickness, death, and silence."

"Oh my god," rushed out of Amy's mouth, and in the time the Doctor took to give her a warning look, the Bad Wolf pushed herself up.

"My Doctor can cure all ills," the Bad Wolf said with the bland certainty of all-knowing, all-seeing, "but only with the help of one like himself."

"Him," the Doctor said, tone flat, caught up in the implications and the vague horror. "The other Doctor, you're bringing him back."

The Bad Wolf skimmed his mind and tilted Rose's head in something that looked like confusion. "He's gone. Sacrificed." The connection broke for a moment when Rose cried out, but then it spoke smoothly again as though the interruption had never occurred. "When her Doctor could no long protect her, his double awoke."

"What?" the Doctor asked blindly, before he could think twice. 

"Me," Donna spoke up, frankly gobsmacked. "She means me."

"Cure them, Doctor, Donna, or it will happen again." The Bad Wolf touched his cheek in something that resembled tenderness, Rose's eyes alien but soft in a way that still felt like her gaze on his face, and he nodded. "They are everywhere, and they will take everything from you, and you will never know they were there."

"Rose," he interrupted, and cursed himself inwardly, adding, "tell me, who do you mean, do you know who – "

"It is done. I've healed what I can. You must do the rest," the Bad Wolf said, the voice trembling as Rose's body began to quake, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Thank you," the Doctor made himself say. "She can't bear much more, you have to let her go."

"You first," it said, and Rose's mouth opened barely, a wisp of regeneration energy curling in the air before she went completely limp in the Doctor's arms.

The Doctor tried to remember how to breathe again in the moment of silence that followed. Donna broke it like it was nothing, in her way, and the Doctor couldn't have been more grateful. "Rory, be a mate? I think Rose needs a bit of a lie-down, maybe a cup of tea," she suggested.

"I've got it handled, thanks," the Doctor said, as casually sharp as he could manage, and picked Rose up.

"Tea, then, I'm a housekeeper, great," Rory said, apparently to himself.

Amy found her voice. "She was talking about silence! Like Prisoner Zero, like  _you said_  we were going back out to stop, and -- "

"And we'll sort it," the Doctor interrupted, carefully edging Rose out of the console room and pulling a face as he took a moment to really shake off the whole Vortex thing. "Blimey, remind me to never do that again, Donna."

"Told you so," Donna said in a knowing sing-song. "Amy! I need your help over here a minute."

The Doctor followed Rory into the main corridors of the TARDIS and said lightly to the unconscious Rose, "We have  _got_  to stop meeting like this."

"Talking to yourself? Or are you the sort of bloke who talks to girls when they sleep 'cos you can't possibly be honest while awake," Amy chimed in from behind him, and the Doctor looked back at her, flabbergasted.

"You -- no surprising me when I'm carrying someone who's taken to fainting!" he chided her.

"I don't like leaving you alone," Amy insisted, and followed him closely. "You look --  _sad_."

"I'm worried," the Doctor defended. "And I should be, the Cloister Bell was ringing, you heard it."

She gave him a warning look. "I don't know what that means, Doctor."

He returned the look. "The Cloister Bell, it's pretty much a Vortex smoke alarm, I haven't taught you how to use it 'cos you'd set it off for fun."

"I would not -- oh, that! The thing that went  _CLONNNNG_?" Amy checked, with a two-handed gesture that was apparently meant to demonstrate a bell ringing.

The Doctor paused at the door of Rose's old bedroom and fixed Amy with his best  _really?_  expression. When she shrugged at him, he fought off a smile and indicated she open the door with a tilt of his head. "Right, the thing that went  _CLONNNNG_. TARDIS knew there was something trying to get through to the Vortex and rang me. It was her. Actually it was the Bad Wolf, not Rose, but -- " He set Rose down on the bed and sat beside her, looking away from Amy. "She's important," he said simply.

Amy fell silent. "I know," she said after a moment.

He hadn't explained properly, obviously. "I mean -- a whole universe shattered around her and she survived, because she's  _special_ , because she's -- "

"Because she's linked to the TARDIS," she interrupted, and raised her eyebrows at the Doctor's surprised look. "What? I'm clever! You don't have to be a Time Lord to be clever!"

Sometimes, his days running about with Rose, Martha, Donna and the rest felt so far away that they had to have happened to a completely different man. And then there was Rose, throwing him back into the intensity of his last regeneration, but he didn't know if he could, not again, not like this, not now.

He shut his eyes and stuck his hand out in Amy's direction.  _Come on, Pond_ , he willed, and the corner of his mouth turned up once her fingers knit with his and her palm was against his, anchoring him to the moment.

If the Doctor were the sort to tilt towards hyperbole, he would have said it could have been hours in comfortable silence in Rose's cosy old bedroom, but really it was a handful of minutes that he knew he couldn't afford to waste. "We're in trouble, aren't we?" Amy said finally.

He sighed. "Oh yeah," he answered, universe-weary and resigned. Then he turned a smile to Amy. "Always, you know it."

She nudged him, and kissed the top of his head with unmasked fondness and worry. "I'll leave you two alone," she said, leaving  _if you want_  unasked.

The Doctor just nodded, and squeezed Amy's hand before releasing it. She shut the door behind her, and he took the moment to take the room in, the room he hadn't been able to bring himself to enter since he'd sent Rose off where he thought she would be safe.

 _They will take everything from you_ , the Bad Wolf had said.

"Try me," he said, low and vengeful, and met his reflection's gaze across the room, dark and determined. He couldn't bring himself to care that barely recognized himself in the moment. The universe, time, and all those in it, had taken too much from him, too often, for him to care what he might have been becoming.

It wouldn't happen again.

* * *

 

He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep resting against the headboard until Rose's voice woke him up. "Just leave him be, he deserves a minute," she was saying, hushed.

"Yeah, right, but Donna says tea should do him some good after the shock," Rory answered, and at the clink of the tea tray being set aside, the Doctor began to concentrate on not opening his eyes, stirring, stretching, or anything that might tip the two off to the minor fact that he was now awake. "He plugged himself into the Heart of the TARDIS, you know."

"Yeah," Rose said, her voice dropping, softer still, and he wasn't quite prepared for her hand against his forehead, her fingers stroking his hair. "Thanks. For the tea."

"Right. No problem, see you later," Rory said, and the door clicked shut behind him.

There was only a half second's pause before Rose shifted away from him, slipping off of the bed, and said in her best  _you aren't fooling me_  tone, "There's tea."

"I heard." The Doctor sat up and stretched. "Oh, two sugars, no milk," he instructed.

"The TARDIS, the face, the way you talk... even the way you take tea changes," Rose said briskly, busying herself with the tea. "I think you like it, regenerating. Never know who you'll be or what you'll wear or how you'll act, besides mad and brilliant, of course."

"Of course," he echoed, with a vague smile. "So, you like it?"

She glanced back at him, considering. "Not wild about the bowtie," she volunteered.

"Give it a day, you'll love the bowtie. Bowties are cool," he said simply, and accepted the tea from Rose, shifting aside on the bed to give her more space to sit. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah." For some reason the question seemed to make her uncomfortable. "I think – Doctor, I think I was... erased, or something – "

He hurriedly drank the tea to cover his discontent at putting her so ill at ease. "Unwritten," he supplied her, gently as he felt comfortable allowing. "But we'll set it right, I promise, you and your family back together again."

Her fingers tapped an awkward rhythm on her thigh, and he tried not to watch. "Aren't you going to ask me what happened?" she asked, and looked up into his face, her expression bare in its challenge. "Whose fault this all is?"

The Doctor sipped his tea to stall. "I just tore you from the Void, this isn't an interrogation – "

"It wasn't John," she said, all firm and sad and strong as he loved her. "It wasn't my Doctor, he didn't do this. You think he did, and... he's done terrible things, I'm not saying he hasn't but he didn't do this."

"I didn't say that," he cut in, treading carefully. "And there's no way he could have caused any event in our universe, nonetheless the explosion of my TARDIS. I know it wasn't him."

She exhaled, something near a laugh, and he didn't have the chance to ask her why. "You're wrong," she said, and he could at least appreciate the directness. "We weren't nearly so closed off as you think."

That piqued his interest. "What?" He downed a lot of the tea and set it aside to get cold, the Heart of the TARDIS thing forgotten. "Tell me everything."

She half-smiled at that, and it was a million times better than that faraway look that he knew too well, the one that meant you'd left a whole shattered world behind you. "Everything, are you sure?"

"Everything and not a word less."

He took her free hand, gingerly, and her hand closed around his; just like that, they were the Doctor and Rose again. "We were the only ones noticing," she said, her eyes closing lightly in the comfortable silence. "That the stars were going out again, and other things, little things. Jake and Dad couldn't see it, thought it'd always been like that. The Royal Family vanished, every last trace of 'em, Doctor, like they'd never existed at all, and Dad, he was making more money than ever 'cos of the economic crash of the States in the '50s, until..."

"The cracks in time," the Doctor said faintly. "Of course."

"Yeah," Rose said, her voice strained. "At first, yeah."

He held onto her hand more tightly, and she squeezed it. "What do you mean 'at first'?" he pressed.

"It wasn't just time energy erasing things," she explained, and spoke more rapidly as she went on. "The walls between the universes, they were weak, and Torchwood picked up something crossing the Void from your world into ours, ships, lots of 'em. Then they just stopped reporting it at all. People were acting off, doing things they'd never, the governments were working for someone else. Even Torchwood started working on projects and locking 'em away."

"Who were they, Rose?" he asked steadily.

"I don't know," Rose confessed. "I just know – they took John."

The Doctor froze at the look on her face, the tear-stains and exhaustion on her face from being worn like a cocktail dress by the Vortex itself, and worst of all, the hope draining out of her face by each passing second. "I got you back, your universe back," he told her, firm as he dared. "Whatever this Silence is planning, I'm going to stop it. I think the Bad Wolf might beat me up later if I don't," he added dryly.

Rose half-laughed, her shoulders jerking in what looked like it could be a sob, and he leaned in before he could think twice about it. "I take it back," she said. The sorrow's smile she turned in his direction was almost enough to make him send her home. "You haven't changed at all."

"I'm sorry," he said, quiet and understanding now. She would never be safe, no matter how many times he saved her. "I'll find your John, I'll send you two on holiday. Somewhere sunny, with drinks with umbrellas," he suggested. "It'll be like I was never here, or you were never -- "

She exhaled and let her teacup fall to the carpet with a faint clinking sound. He opened his mouth to say something, anything that might stop this from escalating to where they both knew it'd land, but then her arms were around him and he couldn't find words. "Stop it, just stop, you can't make me choose again," she murmured.

"I'm not," the Doctor answered, startled and stiff in her arms.

Rose pulled away, a hand to her cheek grounding him. "You are," she said, chidingly. "You always have, you always push me away towards something normal, something better, something safer, but you know what I want."

"You have what you want." It was a gentle reminder, with his best effort not to judge, never to judge, because a woman's love was only guilt-inducing if you loved her back.

He felt paper-thin with the look she gave him. "You're not listening," she said, all sharp and Jackie tone again.

He had to draw himself up a bit to feel ready to retort. "You call him John, you love him, not me, you loved that Doctor, not me, I'm a different man, I'm not broken anymore, I'm fine, I'm not lonely, I'm not tired, I'm just ..." He lost steam as he spoke, and stopped at her raised eyebrows. "I'm fine," he repeated. "And we'll get you your Doctor back, just watch."

Thankfully, Rose humored him. "How d'you plan on doing that?"

"Haven't figured it out yet." The Doctor glanced down at the tea, then concluded, "We should be heading back. We should get to it! Come on, let's race. I'm faster this time. It's the boots, I think," he rambled.

"Doctor," she interrupted his babbling.

He nodded, seriously. "Ix-nay on the race, I have to agree. Shorter route in this TARDIS though."

She put a finger to his lips. "Three times you've tried to get rid of me," she said. "How's that worked for you, so far?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her, but she went on without unsilencing him. "Every time you put me behind a wall, Doctor, the wall comes down, and I wind up back in the TARDIS with you."

"Can I talk now?" he spoke past her index finger.

She removed the finger and sat back, arms crossed as she appraised him. He took that as a yes and went on. "This isn't the time to talk about this. Maybe once we've got it sorted. Who knows how long that'll be, I mean, we've had two or three day adventures but sometimes these things take months or years. Something big is going on, really big, cosmic big, and that's not something we can do over afternoon tea," he assured her. "So – "

"So in the meanwhile we can be the Doctor and Rose and Donna and Amy and Rory Pond, all mates," Rose cut him off; the edge to her tone stopped him cold and halted his apologetic smile. "You just can't wait to shove me away again."

"That – that is not it at all," the Doctor insisted, and the next moment was a bit of a blur – she went to stand, he rose to stop her and when she'd turned back towards him to give him a piece of her mind, it could have only been a team effort between his survival instinct and libido that led to him kissing her soundly on the mouth in the split second of opportunity.

It wasn't the first time he'd kissed Rose, or Rose's mouth anyway, but it was the first time he'd done it in the heat of the moment like this, not terrified or at least not frozen by the terror of what it meant, because this time it meant something more than an impending regeneration, or Cassandra taking too many liberties.

"I... should not have done that," the Doctor observed once he'd pulled away, then he retreated a step, then one more. "I didn't mean – "

"Shut up," Rose retorted, and much to his surprise he saw a smile lingering at the corners of her mouth. "We should go. Universe to save."

"Multiverse," the Doctor corrected her, comfortably know-it-all. Her rebellious look made him smile despite himself, but then she bolted for the door and flung it open.

"Beat you there," she said, in a teasing lilt, and left him shouting "HEY" behind her as he ran to close the distance the time advantage had given her.

For a moment it wasn't just about the physics problem of the multiverse he was working out in the back of his head, or about Rose and her sweet mouth and quick tongue, or wonderful, brilliant Donna. It wasn't about the who, the when, the where, the what, and definitely not the why, just the how, never the destination or the reward, but the running, the sheer, pure thrill of the running, on the way.

The TARDIS keened quietly under his feet, unsettled but content as they arrived in the console room, laughing and out of breath. "Took you long enough," Donna commented, and tossed him the sonic screwdriver. "Get to work!"

"You heard her," Rose teased him, and he flashed her a smile, avoiding Amy's always  _knowing_  gaze as he stuck it in his pocket and straightened to monologue cheerfully to the newly assembled TARDIS crew of five.

"Right then! We've got work to do," he said, and punched coordinates into the nav console. "Pandorica Alliance, the Silence, the TARDIS, the infiltration into another universe and kidnapping of a half-Time Lord, fully genius bloke, what do they all have in common?"

"Someone has it in for you," Amy spoke up, and raised her eyebrows at him.

"That narrows it down to, oh, half the universe," Donna deadpanned.

"Not helpful, Donna!" the Doctor declared.

"She has a point. We could afford to narrow it down a little," Rory admitted.

"The Silence, then." Rose cut into the conversation easily. "Think we've all heard our share of that word, yeah? Who are they?"

Rory gave a brisk nod in agreement. "Not to mention,  _what_  are they?"

"Wait, wait, we're going to the Shadow Proclamation?" Donna sent the Doctor a slightly appalled look. "Last time we went there they wanted to commandeer the TARDIS to go to war!"

"Donna, I mean this in the best possible way, but shut up," the Doctor said, as delicately as such a thing could be said, and turned to Rose – and Amy, and Rory, of course. "Mind looking through the TARDIS index?"

"Oh, my favorite, card catalogues," Amy declared in her best doomed deadpan, unwillingly readying herself to search through the TARDIS database.

"I've got a trick for the index," Rose promised her. "I'll show you."

"I like you already!"

"Oh, god," Rory sighed at the burst of camaraderie, and looked to the Doctor in hopes of a task that wouldn't involve his wife and her likely new best friend. "Anything I can – "

"Nope, sorry," the Doctor said promptly, and exchanged the faintest smile with Donna as they hurtled towards the next less than well-thought out step in the sort of plan forming in the back of his head as they went. He saw his confidence mirrored in her eyes, her brain ticking away at speeds only measurable by Gallifreyan metrics, and for the first time since the Time War, being the cure to the universe's ills felt more a blessing than a curse.

"We're going to do this," Donna said, and her smile was brilliant.

"Yeah," he replied, his smile just as radiant. "We are."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After visiting the Shadow Proclamation, things start to go all sorts of wrong, and Rose finds herself forced to come clean about what led her to join Team TARDIS...

The Doctor stared down the Shadow Architect in complete disbelief, and Rose wondered if this was going to be another one of those situations where there would be concertedly non-minced words and they’d have to run with barely any notice.

“I don’t think you understand how _important_ this is,” he said, as patiently as one could expect from him, really.

The Shadow Architect remained solemnly still and cold. “And you do not understand our terms of engagement. We do not engage with combatants until a victor emerges and the Justice Department rules.”

Rose and Donna exchanged a look while the Doctor stood in uncomprehending fury. “I am not a combatant,” he informed the Shadow Architect. “This is a new face but I’m the same man and I’m not at war with anyone!”

“Records show you are a combatant in a declared war,” the Shadow Architect responded mildly after a glance down at her tablet.

“Then the records are wrong,” the Doctor said coolly. “Now tell me about the Silence.”

Something about this didn’t feel right. Rose glanced around the room as subtly as possible, and her heart sank as she saw just how surrounded they were. “Doctor – ” she started.

The Shadow Architect spoke over her. “We are a neutral third party body of justice, Doctor.” She almost had sympathy in her voice. Almost. “We do not supply information about ongoing conflicts to the combatants involved.”

Now the Doctor was near shouting. “How many times must I tell you, I’m not – ” He broke off and began to actually shout. Rose winced. “Silence! The Silents, whatever they’re called! Tell me something, anything, planet of origin!”

“Doctor!” the Shadow Architect protested, cringing herself.

He remained steady. “I want peace,” he explained shortly. “Not war. I want to talk to them.”

“The Doctor does not wage peace,” one of the Shadow people in the back declared.

“Now stop a minute!” Donna cut in tartly.

“The Doctor only brings death,” another chimed in.

“Brings death behind him like a plague – ”

Rose turned to the Doctor, who was wearing an expression she hadn’t seen on this face yet and honestly hadn’t expected to – cold, unyielding fury. “I end conflicts on behalf of the Shadow Proclamation. You expect me to stand by and do nothing when empires and despots break the tenets of your law like you’re the Galactic Federation?”

An outcry broke out among the Shadows and the Architect raised her hand to silence them. “You are not among our Shadows,” she said evenly. “Do not blaspheme.”

“Of course he’s not blaspheming,” Donna said, in a helpful, consoling secretarial tone. “Just you know pointing out that what he does is for the good of the universe, at least most of the time – ”

“Donna, stop helping me,” the Doctor cut her off, pained.

Donna pressed on, brightly ignoring him. “Lovely conversation, thank you for the tea.” Rose caught a nod from Donna in the Doctor’s direction, and she seized one of his arms as Donna grabbed the other. “Think it’s about time we get going though, what with the war and all!”

“DONNA!”

“God, and you called me a shouter,” Donna said blandly. Rose tried not to laugh.

The Doctor yanked his hand from Donna’s to snap his fingers to open the door as they reached the TARDIS to keep Donna from the key. “So there,” he said.

“Nice trick!” Donna complimented, and shut the door behind them. “He mucked it up,” she added to Amy and Rory, both wearing matching expectant looks.

The Doctor whirled on her, offended. “I did not!”

“You got all shouty,” Donna retorted, not without affection.

“They called me a combatant!”

“So we didn’t learn anything,” Amy said slowly.

“They called him a combatant in a war and they don’t talk to combatants,” Rose explained, a bit of an edge to her faked cheerfulness. She felt a headache coming on. “He’s in a mood.”

Donna shrugged at the Doctor, as though this was just a minor hiccup – as well it could be, Rose supposed. “Suppose we just have to ask someone else, then. Ideas?”

“Only one. But we need a pit stop first. Amy and Rory are going home, and Donna, we need to talk,” the Doctor said firmly, as he began to enter coordinates into the nav screen.

“Wait. No. Doctor, I’m not going anywhere,” Amy insisted.

“Amy,” Rory started.

“Sorry but if you think I’m, that _we’re_ leaving you to do this alone you’re a bigger madman than I thought.” She poked the Doctor in the chest, defiant. “I’m. _Not._ Going.”

The Doctor looked down where she’d prodded him. “Pond,” he began. “I’m not doing it _alone_ – ”

“I’m not leaving you when you need me,” Amy said, in a tone that made Rose embarrassed to remember her own fervent desire to stay. It was different to see from the outside, that much more inspiring and pathetic.

“I don’t need you!” the Doctor retorted.

Amy’s expression changed in a flurry, from angry to hurt then again to devastated, then back to fury. “Well, drop us off as soon as you can, wouldn’t want to be a distraction,” she snapped, and grabbed Rory’s arm before he could do anything stupid like start shouting himself or throw a punch at the Time Lord in his own time machine.

Rose went instantly to the Doctor’s side as Amy hauled Rory out of the console room. “What was that?” she demanded.

“Rose,” Donna said in this quiet tone that she recognized as one of the Doctor’s, in his darker moods, and she turned away from the Doctor’s carefully blank face to Donna. “Leave it,” she advised, and went to the console to fiddle with something that wasn’t likely all that important.

They had a moment, just them, and Rose would never waste that opportunity again. She hugged him around the neck, though he remained still, and whispered, “You don’t have to push us away.”

Then she left, not looking back, not willing to chance a look at his face.

* * *

The TARDIS made her home at the Pond residence for the time being, though the motley crew currently on board stayed within the relative dimensions in space in their favorite comfort spaces. The Doctor was likely in the console room with Donna, up to his ankles in work he’d been putting off for what could have easily been years; Amy and Rory would be in their bedroom, talking quietly or cuddled together in silent solace. Rose herself sat in the red plush chair tucked in the corner of the wardrobe, her head in her hands as she slumped forward.

“You were wrong, John,” she said, to the empty room, to the multiverse in general, because he wasn’t there to hear her. He wasn’t anywhere. “It wasn’t him.”

Then she changed clothes. First it served to make her feel like she’d escaped some sort of psychological shackles keeping her tied here – new Rose, new chapter, she could leave whenever she liked, couldn’t she – but accessorizing with the second outfit proved an even better distraction, and then the third dress with all the buttons kept her nice and busy...

She looked in the mirror after slipping back into her regular clothes, and her eyes were ablaze with gold. _Artron energy, just a bit,_ John had encouraged her, and now it was burning through her again. She exhaled and felt the TARDIS pulsing around her, speaking wordlessly to her in hums and tick-tocks. “Hello,” she murmured to her, and promptly collapsed to her knees, hard.

No. No. She willed herself back to her feet, through the strain and confusion, but failed.

_You are not me._

Her hands began to work without her, seeking something – a grip, apparently, to pull her to her feet and keep her staggering. “No, no,” she tried to murmur, but her body went on stumbling down hallways to lead her to the second console room.

Dust came off of nearly every surface she made contact with, but her fingers were clumsy on the keyboard, as the Bad Wolf drew on her connection to the TARDIS. “You bitch,” Rose managed to snap out, yanking her hands away from the keyboard, but not before her fingers made the last necessary keystroke.

Nothing happened.

Rose stared at the console, eyebrows raised, and waited for something to explode, for the lights to lower, for something remotely sinister to happen. Absolutely nothing continued to happen, and aggressively so.

“What?” she said.

 _Go,_ the Bad Wolf willed her, and she didn’t think twice before obeying. She had to tell the truth, even if the Doctor could no longer be trusted. The worst had already happened – John was gone.

Rose hovered at the entrance to the console room. “I have to tell you something,” she said freely, clearly, and the Doctor and Donna looked up at her first in curiosity and then in mild horror. Then Rose noticed the wisps of artron energy drifting from her fingertips.

The Doctor rushed to her, but she pushed him back, her body quaking. “She wants to talk to you,” she said.

“I don’t want to hear it. Tell her to go back where she came from,” the Doctor fired back without missing a beat.

 _I am home,_ the Bad Wolf answered, through her, and Rose drowned.

* * *

Everything was changed when Rose woke up. She laid on her back in the hard beds of the medical ward, alone, soaked in sweat. When she felt well enough to wander, she found the Doctor, Donna, and the Ponds tensely discussing something in low tones in the console room, a pot of tea apparently boiling on the console to soothe some of the obvious nerves. She was almost frightened to ask what had happened since she’d blacked out, but almost frightened was never frightened enough.

“Hi,” she spoke up, and joined them as though nothing had happened. “Don’t think I got the memo on the meeting here – ”

“You should be resting,” Rory chided her, at the nearly audibly stern stare the Doctor was giving Rose. “I’ll, ah, let’s go.”

“I want to know what she said,” Rose pressed, meeting the Doctor’s gaze without hesitation.

“A lot of nothing,” the Doctor said, distracted, irritated all at once. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Right, not like I’m being possessed or anything,” she shot back.

“I can’t sort this with you here. I can’t. So go,” the Doctor rattled off, his gaze focused pointedly askance.

She could feel herself losing the fight. “Doctor – ”

“ _Really_ , Doctor,” Amy cut in. “First me, now Rose? We’re a team, we’ve always been a team, I don’t care what you’re saying now, you’re being an idiot.”

“Amy, I need you to stay here and look after Rose. We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning.” The Doctor turned to the console. “I need to create a damper for the artron energy that Rose keeps attracting, and then we’re on our merry way.”

“I am not – ” Rose started indignantly, just as Amy snapped, “Were you even listening – ”

“Stop,” Donna interrupted, exasperated. “This is much more dangerous than either of us thought. Someone’s tailing us.”

“Sorry? Someone’s what?” Rory asked, after a moment of dumbfounded silence from the human crew.

“We have a tail,” Donna repeated matter-of-factly.

“I think he was asking for clarification and less action-film lingo,” the Doctor advised.

“Enough mouth, you.” Donna looked to Rory, Amy and Rose. “Someone’s following us.”

“But no one can be following us,” Rory said slowly. “Right?”

“Who ever said that?” the Doctor asked, sending Rory a befuddled look.

“Well it’s a space and time machine – ”

“I haven’t got the only one! The best one, mind...”

“Who’s following us then?” Amy asked, nonplussed.

Donna poured herself another cup of tea, mild as anything. “Whoever’s tailing us found us out by a sequence programmed into the secondary console. Hacked our system, pulled some information, we don’t know exactly what.”

“No one can hack the TARDIS,” Amy pointed out.

“The Doctor can,” Rose said, forcing herself to meet his hard gaze. “With a little help.”

“Go back to the medical ward,” was the Doctor’s only answer.

“I didn’t mean to lie to you, Doctor – I really thought he was – ”

“ _Go_ ,” he snapped, dark and furious like his last face, like John, and she obeyed, just like before, cursing the forces of the universe shoving her around like a handy chess piece.

* * *

Rose answered the door of her bedroom the moment he knocked.

“I’ll tell you everything,” she promised, and let him inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow every time Team TARDIS looks for answers, things get simultaneously more complicated and make more sense. A semi-non-linear chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Willing to bet y'all thought this story was dead, and so did I, sort of, but I knocked out the last half of this chapter this week and thought I'd share this new development! I'm halfway through 4, as well, so that should be up within the next two weeks. Not going to put up a posting schedule, though. :) Not yet, anyway.
> 
> Both this fic and the series it's in are now officially AU, because I say so! They are, however, in the same AU, so they'll be interacting soon enough (so Just a Crosshair is not a one-shot and will be crossing over with this fic! :D). They are going to be alternate S6 and S7s, or B-sides, or something. I haven't figured out the specifics yet.

“Accept it,” the Bad Wolf said. “Accept that things are changing, things will change. All things will end. There is nothing you can do.”

“There is always something I can do!” the Doctor insisted. “Who are you to tell me what I’m capable of -- ”

She spoke serenely. “I know you. I know every piece of you, throughout time.”

“Then you know nothing has stopped me before,” he retorted.

“Your past isn’t the problem,” the Bad Wolf said, dismissive. “Your future... all of you, where you mean to go, where you will go… you don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand.”

“Of course I can understand,” the Doctor said fiercely. “ _Tell me._ What do you want? Why are you here?”

“I’m here for you, Doctor,” the Bad Wolf answered matter-of-factly. “She brought me here, to make things right.”

He threw his hands up in frustrated confusion. “What -- ” he started.

She cut him off. “This is irrelevant. My Doctor… you say you can weave in between the threads of time, but like any mortal you weave your own shroud each time you do. Your story is going to end.”

“Isn’t that what you’re meant to do? Save me?” The Doctor smiled nastily to punctuate it.

The Bad Wolf completely ignored that. “This is a warning,” she said. “What you fear is coming. _Your future_ is coming.”

The Doctor’s tone was bitter, but his face remained accepting. “It always is.”

The Bad Wolf smiled, Rose’s mouth lifting, as tears streaked hot down her cheeks. “You can’t change what’s going to happen.”

“Watch me,” the Doctor said shortly.

The Bad Wolf exhaled in a rush of golden energy, and Rose’s body lolled for a moment; the Doctor caught her when she fell.

“I’m taking her to the sick bay. Running some tests. Donna, monitor the signals we isolated,” he said, quietly, dangerously. “I’ll be back soon.”

“You need me there,” Donna said mildly.

Now the Doctor was genuinely irritated. “Why does everyone think I need -- ”

“Because you need people sometimes,” Amy interrupted, peevishly.

“Pond,” the Doctor started in much the same tone, then just swept Rose up into his arms to carry her out of the console room without another word.

Rose was dying. The Doctor knew that, it was clear as the nose on Rory’s face, and as much as he wished he could deny it, it was a reality crystallizing so pointedly in front of him that he couldn’t. There was a chance he could be wrong, but investigating was a dangerous game. Once the tests confirmed to him that she was dying, what then? He would have to face that what little time he’d snatched away with her was bleeding away.

Would it be worth knowing she was fine if it meant the risk of welcoming the inevitable diagnosis instead?

He placed her on the bed in the sick bay, delicately, watching the equipment pick up her vital signs the moment her back touched the sheets and solid metal of the bed. The first flicker on the screens wasn’t promising; just about every system in her body was depressed, as though she was drifting behind her life signs like a thin tow line connected her to life at all.

_You can’t change what’s going to happen,_ the Bad Wolf had said.

That could mean anything. He pulled a chair up and watched the screens and Rose herself avidly, his mind racing. "I need you to tell me the truth," he said to Rose, softly. "I know what I did to you. I know I hurt you. I’m sorry. But if you want me to help you I need you to tell me the truth."

She didn’t reply. Obviously. He took in each of the screens, all the information there, for any clue he might find. Artron energy began to bleed through her pores in a rush of gold, and her breathing arrested for just a moment; then, everything returned to normal. The Doctor stared.

It didn’t make sense that Rose had survived this long as essentially an electromagnet of artron energy, but it didn’t make sense that Rose brought the Bad Wolf back into existence. It didn’t make sense that the Bad Wolf could do everything it had done. _What’s one more drop in the impossibility bucket?_ he supposed.

He toyed with the sonic, scanned her with it, and considered the readings.

“She’ll be asleep for a while,” Donna said from the doorway. “We should talk. The lot of us.”

“You should call Shaun,” the Doctor answered. “Give him an update, at least, if he can handle it. Never met the man, I don’t know if he’s got the constitution -- ”

“He’s my husband, of course he’s got the constitution,” Donna returned without missing a beat.

“He married you when you were…” The Doctor gestured vaguely to indicate a relative ‘before’. “You know, not when…” He gestured again, at her now.

“Are you saying I’m more difficult when I’ve got a Time Lord consciousness in my head?” Donna asked, with plain amusement. “Well, I must be, look at you -- ”

“I’m not difficult!” the Doctor argued.

Donna looked at him frankly, and he conceded the point with a sheepish shrug. “My point stands,” he said, with a raised finger. “And I don’t know if you want to put him in danger.”

Donna stopped, surprised. “You’d let me… _bring him_?”

“Well, why not?” the Doctor asked rhetorically. “If he’d follow the rules.”

“What rules?” Donna asked dryly.

“The ones no one follows,” the Doctor said, cracking a half-smile.

He put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, thinking. She crossed the room to fondly ruffle his hair. “You should tell her the truth,” she said.

“She’s not telling me the truth,” the Doctor said into his hands.

“Set a good example, then.”

“I need to send her back.”

“Did you hear her back there?” Donna needled him. “This is the situation we’re in. We need as much help as we can get. I know where we’re going next.”

The Doctor sighed and lifted his head. “To pick up Shaun?”

“Yeah, that too,” Donna said easily. “Come on, then. I have to tell the whole class.”

The Doctor pulled himself up out of the seat, looked at Donna, then back at Rose. “I’ll see you there,” Donna said, in simple understanding, and left the sick bay.

He looked down at Rose, who looked so peaceful and safe, so normal, so human. He leaned down and kissed her forehead, his eyes closing tightly in an automatic rush of fear.

“Don’t die,” he whispered, uselessly, at her serene face and slightly parted lips. “Please don’t die.”

 

\--

 

As the bedroom door shut behind them, Rose just looked at the Doctor, the space between them more fraught with tension than she could have ever imagined, then lowered her eyes contritely. He knew he should still be angry. For some reason, faced with her, after time to think and remember what he’d learned, he wasn’t. Not as much.

“Sit,” he ordered her shortly, and she stiffened, and went to sit, straight-backed, on the bed. He sat beside her, not too close, careful to not allow any contact as she turned just slightly toward him. He didn’t want to soften, to make this easy on her. “Why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t know,” Rose blurted out. “I didn’t know that he was alive. He was gone. I -- she couldn’t feel him anymore, he was gone, Doctor -- ”

He cut her off with a gesture. “I don’t mean about that.”

Rose stilled. “Oh,” she said, in a smaller voice.

“Right,” he said tightly. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

She took a deep breath, her hands gathered in her lap, and began to speak. “You gave us the TARDIS coral.” The Doctor nodded. “Donna said how to grow it, and John figured it out. But it wasn’t growing fast enough. Something was happening, we weren’t prepared, John said.” She was obviously holding something back, but she was finally talking; he could get more information out of her later. “We needed to be prepared. We needed a TARDIS.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have,” the Doctor muttered.

“No,” Rose said fiercely. “It’s not like that!”

“It’s absolutely like that!” His hands flew up in indignation, and he raked his fingers into his hair to keep channeling out the nervous energy. “You were in a different world, Rose, you shouldn’t have tried to call on -- on what still -- “

“There’s still trace artron energy in me, that’s what John said.” She spoke rapidly, so he couldn’t interrupt her, probably. “All I had to do was call it up. Like a memory. And I did, and it grew. And she came to me, in my dreams, all the time.”

“You grew a TARDIS out of a coral and then _accelerated it_ with energy from the _wrong universe_ ,” the Doctor snapped off. “And the Bad Wolf -- you could have died, Rose!” _You already are dying._ “It’s irresponsible. Not of you, of him, he should have known better, he could have ripped through the fabric of the multiverse and killed you in the process, and you said this _wasn’t his fault_ \-- “

“It’s not!” Rose argued. “And this doesn’t have anything to do with anything!”

“ _The Bad Wolf_ lied to me, _you_ lied to me, I can’t save the universe or figure out who’s at war with me unless I have all of the information,” he railed at her. The softness he’d started with was fading quickly. “Why would you lie to me?”

She abruptly stood, distressed, pacing towards the corner. “Because I knew you’d be like this!”

“Expecting the truth?” he retorted.

“Rule one,” Rose said, in her nasty, Jackie Tyler tone. “The Doctor lies.”

There was a brief pause, then the Doctor spoke softly, dangerously. “Don’t use those words against me. I have my reasons.”

She scoffed at him openly. “And _so do I_!”

“Fine! What are they?” he challenged.

“I wanted my life back! And it all went wrong! It always goes wrong. Every time you send me away, it always goes wrong!” She turned away from him before he could see her expression, and she pressed her hands to her face. “I loved him, I still do, I think, but I wasn’t enough for him, he knew that the Bad Wolf could kill me but he did it anyway so we could travel -- and that was killing me too -- not to mention he _wasn’t you_ , and you knew that when you shoved him at me, Doctor, but I don’t think you even _cared_ \-- “

“You think I wanted to send you away?” The Doctor stared at her, the back of her t-shirt raised, a thin line of skin visible above her skirt. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Yeah, well,” she started, her voice thick, and he fought the urge to find a handkerchief. Not the time, yet. “I lied because I wanted you to think it was … monsters and adventure and not just him swanning off with a TARDIS.” She stopped, then added quickly, “He left. He did. But he came back, and we were trying it on again, Doctor, and he told me I had to come quickly because something was happening and then -- “

Just as he stood, she went dead-silent and sobbed, once. He pulled her into his arms, though she pushed at him, and held onto her, loosely enough, but just enough to be present. “They took him, you said before.”

“They must’ve,” Rose said firmly, and looked up at him. “He wouldn’t have left me. Not like that.”

The Doctor might have had his doubts, but he was hardly going to voice them. “Obviously,” he said, then, still holding onto her casually, “he’s found us, with the Bad Wolf’s help. Best we have a conversation to hash things out, don’t you think?”

“Are you going to talk him into agreeing with you?” Rose very nearly smiled. “He’s not fond of that. He’s like you were.”

“He’s also like I am,” the Doctor said, upbeat enough. “Probably. It’s worth a try.”

Rose pulled away from him, and wiped her eyes impatiently. “God, I’m glad I didn’t put on a full face this morning.”

He spoke without thinking, really. “I think you look lovely.”

She turned and looked at him, frozen, and her face was unreadable. He looked at her, hoping she’d say something that would clarify things, but she didn’t. “We should find him,” she said, more withdrawn than before. “And see what he has to say for himself.”

The Doctor had this perfect image of seizing Rose, madly kissing her until she went tense in the best possible way, of distracting her from all of the things he’d wreaked upon her life, most of all himself. But that wasn’t an option.

“Come along, Rose,” he said, and smiled. He left the room first, and, eventually, she followed.

 

\--

 

Shaun Temple was not a stupid man, the Doctor noted, but nor was he an astrophysicist. “But it’s bigger on the inside,” he protested at Donna, pulling at her sleeve, as the Doctor mouthed the words along with him.

“Isn’t it clever?” the Doctor announced, not expecting anyone to argue. “Whole dimension in a phonebox!”

“Can’t I do this for once?” Donna argued. “He’s _my_ husband.”

“It’s my time machine,” the Doctor pointed out. “It’s not  _your_ time machine, last I checked.”

“It’s a time machine? Of course it’s a time machine,” Shaun said, still staring around at the TARDIS interior. “Why wouldn’t it be a time machine?”

“That’s the spirit, Shaun old boy!” the Doctor said brightly. “Why not indeed!”

“I’m... pretty sure that’s not what he meant,” Rory interjected, raising a hand.

“Good to meet you, I’m Amy Pond,” Amy greeted Shaun, shaking his hand.

“Williams,” Rory reminded her.

“Yeah, not really,” Amy said, without missing a beat, and grinned.

The Doctor glanced back to see Rose slip into the console room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and started typing like a madman on the nearest keyboard on the console. “Right! So! Everyone’s on board, welcome, Shaun, you might want to find a handy seat -- Amy! Rory! Where did all the chairs go?”

“You said they were clutter and yelled at the TARDIS at it, oh, about four trips ago,” Rory told him. “Is that a problem? I don’t think you should yell at the TARDIS again, though. I’d like to be able to get tea instead of whiskey with some sort of measurable certainty.”

“I think that’s a feature, not a bug, personally,” Amy chimed in, dryly.

“Not a problem, just clear space for the greenhorn if we run into some turbulence,” the Doctor said, happily distracted by the task at hand. “Ah! Here we are! We’re being followed, like Donna said, so there should be a signal for whatever ship is nearest by -- _well_ , he’s probably keeping his distance if he doesn’t know Donna is in here and all…” He gestured back at her, and there was a pointed cleared throat. He paused and looked back at Shaun. “What?”

“What are you saying about my wife?” Shaun asked sharply, at being acknowledged. “Is someone after Donna?”

“No, no, no no no,” Donna interrupted him, and put a hand on his arm. “This is -- the other one.”

“The Doctor with the sticky-uppy hair,” Shaun clarified.

“Sort of,” Donna had to concede. “It’s the one I sort of switched places with. Turns out he’s been alive all along!”

Shaun looked alarmed. “The one you said was sort of you...ish?”

“I know, it’s scary, isn’t it,” the Doctor piped up, and Amy elbowed him in the ribs. “Oh! There he is. I don’t like it,” he realized, upon sighting what had to be the young TARDIS, disguised as a 1940s-era wardrobe, rather conspicuously perched on the corner of the street Donna and Shaun lived on.

“Neither did I,” Rose spoke up, with the faintest smile when the Doctor glanced back at her.

“Is that a TARDIS?” Amy interjected, hanging over the Doctor’s shoulder to get a better look.

“In the loosest sense, yes,” the Doctor answered, cheerfully flippant, and initiated contact with it.

“But there can’t be more TARDIS...es,” Rory pointed out. “Can there? Do they grow on trees or something?”

“Not trees,” the Doctor answered, distracted enough by the call not going through right away. “But he grew one. My idea. Not a great idea.”

“Doctor,” Rose said, chiding.

“I’m not wrong! Here we are.” The call connected, and there he was -- the him who wasn’t quite him or really him at all -- or maybe more him than he was right now. It was all very confusing. Either way, there he was, all mussed hair and dark eyes vibrant with determination and fear. “Hello,” he greeted him.

“Hello,” John returned, and glanced around at what he could see on his scanner of the TARDIS interior. “Steampunk much?”

“Is that a problem, Mr… Judgey-Person? Let us have a look at yours, then.” The Doctor smiled only for a split second as John grinned, and turned the scanner around to show him the sleek mixed metal and coral interior. “Oh, that’s clever, I like it!”

“It got stuck like this halfway through and I decided I liked it, so,” John said grandly, offscreen, then swung the scanner back to his face and punk rock t-shirt.

“Really, did I accidentally turn on a DIY channel or are you two going to sit here comparing TARDIS desktop themes?” Donna interrupted, in a fine cheery imitation of annoyance.

All of the joy left John’s face in that instant. “Donna? DONNA. What did you do?” he demanded of the Doctor.

“Nothing more than you have,” the Doctor said tartly. “Blame the Bad Wolf. Donna’s fine, well, she’s still a pain, but she’s handy -- ”

“Oh.” John paused. “You’ve been talking to her, too.” Then it struck him, and he exhaled heavily. “Rose, she’s -- _really?_ \-- even after the cracks? I'd just... _how_?”

Rose came up behind the Doctor, still sullen and closed off. “ _You know_ how.”

There was that Jackie Tyler tone again. “Now,” the Doctor said hurriedly, before that could escalate any further, “I want you to explain why you’re -- wait, no, how about what the hell you’ve been doing -- that would be a good start, let’s go with that.”

“Doctor,” Donna interrupted, and he glanced at her, simultaneously answering her alongside John with a “What?”

The Doctor looked up at John. “You… are not the Doctor,” he said, slowly, with great concern.

“Technically,” John said, cheerfully, “I am. So are you! Funny how that works. Thought you’d have got the hang of this by now, being older than I am and all, but senility, you know.”

“No, you’re not,” the Doctor said, frowning. “You never were. You’re… I know I’m prone to forgetting things, comes with the regeneration thing, but you only have one heart, how do you not notice something that...” He looked at his company of mostly-humans. “Never mind.”

“I would notice that if it were true,” John said, clearly annoyed and searching the Doctor’s face for clues. “Is there a good reason you’re trying to manipulate me?”

“John,” Rose spoke up, her voice with a definite edge, “you need to stop. You can’t go run off and be the Doctor. You’re _human,_ or at least partly. You can’t do the things he does, not all of them, you can’t be half as stupid -- ”

“Excuse me,” the Doctor said, offended.

“Oh please, like you don’t milk your regenerative ability for all it’s worth,” Donna chimed in from behind them.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. “John,” he said, patiently. “Why do you have a different TARDIS?”

John glanced around. “You crashed yours,” he said, as though it was obvious.

“Well -- yes I did -- but I didn’t ever fly _that_ ,” the Doctor sputtered, and glanced around to see Amy hiding laughter into her hands. “Pond! No! No laughing! This is serious!”

“You’re not making sense,” Rose insisted.

“And you were supposed to be dead. The Vortex told me you were dead,” John snapped right back. “Obviously someone’s lying to all of us. Warping everything. Someone’s using us.”

“I’ll believe that,” the Doctor said, exchanging a look with Donna. “Shaun, we need some takeaway for the lot, John and I are going to chat -- ”

“Not alone you aren’t,” Rose said, unimpressed.

“Rose,” John said, aggravated. “I am perfectly capable of getting along with myself.”

Rose sighed heavily. “You’re joking, right? I’m staying with you. Both of you. We’ll bring John here, see if we can jog his memory with the real TARDIS. We’ll be right there,” she said to John through the cam-link, and shut it off before he could open his mouth and protest. “Come on.”

There was a silence between when the Doctor nodded and everyone else realized the five-act drama was on intermission, and they did their best to begin to chatter as though they had not been listening intently the entire time. “Anyone want Chinese?” Donna asked, all loudly and cheerfully, and Shaun cheered, leading the Ponds out of the TARDIS.

“That was subtle,” Rose said, with a sigh.

He shook his head at her. “You really don’t have to stay with us. Go. Eat. Nothing’s going to happen,” he insisted. “I may be dangerous but I know that he’s -- ” _Important to you._ No, he couldn’t say that. “One of us. No matter how it looks.”

“Fine.” Rose’s eyebrows raised, but she said nothing else, taking up her jacket and going outside as she pulled it on. The Doctor ran after her, his mind only freezing up for a nanosecond at the sight of John before a strategy clearly presented itself to him. “Hello,” he greeted John.

“I thought that was a bowtie, and there it is, a bowtie,” John noted. “ _Why_ is it a bowtie?”

“Why would it not be a bowtie, is the better question, I think,” the Doctor said, fixing it primly.

“Do we need to go over the bowtie thing each time?” Rose asked, looking between them. “Let’s go back to the TARDIS.”

“I don’t know if your TARDIS is actually neutral ground. Our TARDIS. That one,” John specified, pointing at the phonebox. “Still -- ” Rose was giving him the eyes like gimlets. “All right! Let’s go.”

“Fantastic!” the Doctor cheered, and led the way, only misstepping clumsily for no apparent reason once or twice on the walk back. “We’re ordering takeaway, you can join us once you check out as not being an evil duplicate.”

“Probably not an evil duplicate. Duplicate, possibly,” John allowed, as the Doctor opened the door of the TARDIS. “If I’m evil I’m not very good at it, and I’m generally very good at things.”

“Oh, well, he’s definitely John,” Rose said under her breath.

“Anyway, I have my own TARDIS. Do you really need more people on this TARDIS? I could just take Rose and go,” John said, offhand, and looked mildly offended at the expression Rose sent him. “If you want, if you want! I thought that was implied!”

“I wasn’t inviting you on to my crew,” the Doctor said, with a brittle smile. “I was inviting you to dinner.”

Now John looked actively offended. The Doctor wasn’t about to apologize, and carried on, with a casual mention to tea or whiskey in the kitchen. When John reached for the Doctor’s jacket -- he turned, immediately, and challenged him with a look. “You are not me, _John_. You are what I’ve worked so hard not to be.”

“Stop calling me John,” he said heatedly. “You know what my name is -- ”

The Doctor seized John by the hair, thought quickly, and slammed his forehead against John’s. “Doctor,” Rose exclaimed, startled, and unfortunately the psychic link went both ways and in a millennium or two he hadn’t actually stumbled across a psyche this tortured and manipulated. Something had changed, something he wasn’t sure could be changed back, but when John stumbled back, the look of plain horror on his face meant that the psychic exchange had at least borne the fruit he’d meant it to.

“But I’m -- ” John got out, and the Doctor rubbed his forehead, only then noticing the distress Rose was in at the state of him. “I’m -- I know I am -- I’m -- ” He pressed his hand to the left side of his chest, then to his right, and froze. “I...”

“Doctor you have to help him, something’s wrong,” Rose protested, hauling him forward by the hand. “Please, I’m -- look at his eyes, I don’t want, he has to, oh, God -- ”

How had this all escalated so quickly? The Doctor pressed his forehead to John’s, then, as he shook, and kept his breath steady and his mind clear. _Sleep. Sleep._ It didn’t take much. John was already on the brink of passing out there and then, and it would be easier to take him to the sick bay this way. “Rose,” he said, just feeling her tense and beside him, “it’s going to be all right. I think it’s starting to make sense.”

“How,” Rose said, as levelly as a half-hysterical person could manage, “does this make sense?”

“There’s only one way to test a Doctor-trap.” The Doctor hefted John over his shoulder, wavering on his feet, then hurried up. “Come on! I’m sure I’ve a stretcher somewhere but for now I’m just going to have to do.”

“You have to tell me _something_ about what’s going on,” Rose pressed. “And if you say ‘I’ll explain later,’ I will hurt you.” Still, she followed, again, and he grinned to himself before putting on an expression more befitting of war, brainwashing, and time travel chess.

 


End file.
